Income Support Policies and the Rise of Student and Family Homelessness

DOI10.1177/0002716220981847
Date01 January 2021
AuthorZachary Parolin
Published date01 January 2021
Subject MatterStructural Forces
46 ANNALS, AAPSS, 693, January 2021
DOI: 10.1177/0002716220981847
Income Support
Policies and the
Rise of Student
and Family
Homelessness
By
ZACHARY PAROLIN
981847ANN The Annals of The American AcademyIncome Support Policies And Homelessness
research-article2021
This study investigates whether the generosity and
accessibility of publicly provided income support con-
tributes to levels of family homelessness. Using data on
student homelessness from most public school districts
in the United States, I find that greater access to cash
assistance from the Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families (TANF) program reduces levels of family
homelessness and that the reduction is particularly
strong for majority–Black and Native American school
districts. The results suggest that the observed decline
in access to TANF cash assistance may be an important
driver of the rise in family homelessness. Evidence is
inconclusive about whether greater access to the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or
greater generosity of the Earned Income Tax Credit
(EITC) reduces levels of homelessness.
Keywords: homelessness; welfare state; income trans-
fers; poverty; education; federalism
The U.S. Department of Education (DoE)
estimates that more than 1.5 million chil-
dren across the country’s public schools experi-
enced homelessness during the 2017–2018
school year. Moreover, the number of homeless
students is rising. From the 2009–2010 school
year to 2017–2018, the share of homeless stu-
dents increased from 1.8 percent to 2.6 percent
of all children attending public schools (National
Center for Homeless Education 2019). Despite
high and rising homelessness, few studies have
sought to understand how changes to the
American welfare state have shaped the hous-
ing situation of families with children and
whether certain policy changes might reduce
homelessness in the future.
Zachary Parolin is an assistant professor at Bocconi
University and a senior fellow at Columbia University’s
Center on Poverty & Social Policy. His research focuses
on the measurement and sources of social inequality
across high-income countries. His recent work has been
published in Social Forces, Demography, and The
Lancet Public Health.
Correspondence: zachary.parolin@columbia.edu
INCOME SUPPORT POLICIES AND HOMELESSNESS 47
The DoE defines homelessness as lacking a “fixed, regular, and adequate
nighttime residence.” In addition to unsheltered families (those living in cars, in
public spaces, and so on), the DoE count includes children who are sheltering in
hotels/motels, doubled up with other families, or living in shelters or transitional
housing (National Center for Education Statistics 2017). The DoE measure of
homelessness is thus much broader than that of the U.S. Department of Housing
and Urban Development (HUD). Of the 1.5 million youth in public schools iden-
tified as homeless in 2017–2018, nearly three-fourths shared temporary housing
with other families due to a loss of housing, economic hardship, or similar reasons
(National Center for Homeless Education 2019). These children would not be
classified as homeless under the narrower HUD definition. Around 14 percent
of homeless students in the DoE estimates were living in temporary shelters or
transitional housing, while 7 percent were living in hotels and motels. An esti-
mated 3 percent of homeless youth were unsheltered. However, the share of
unsheltered homeless has increased the most of the four categories from 2014 to
2017 (rising nearly 30 percent, or a full percentage point).
This study asks and answers the following primary research question: how
have policy changes related to generosity and accessibility of income support
programs affected patterns of family homelessness in the United States? I use the
DoE data on shares and composition of homeless children in nearly all public
school districts within the United States to assess how income supports at state
and national levels have contributed to patterns of family homelessness.
Specifically, I estimate how differences across state and year in the accessibility
or generosity of income support from the Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families (TANF) program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
(SNAP), and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) affect levels of student and
family homelessness.1
We already know that local housing costs, economic conditions, and other
structural factors are likely to influence homelessness (Nunez and Fox 1999;
Shinn etal. 1998; Wildeman 2014; Lee, Tyler, and Wright 2010; Culhane etal.
2013; Evangelist and Shaefer 2020). This study posits that the generosity and
accessibility of income supports might reduce the likelihood that a family experi-
ences homelessness, independent of prevailing economic conditions. Social assis-
tance programs, such as SNAP and TANF, and wage subsidy programs, such as
the EITC, act to directly increase a low-income family’s economic resources,
albeit in different ways. TANF cash assistance directly increases a family’s ability
to pay rent, while SNAP benefits can only be spent on food items. The EITC is
conditional on employment and administered only once per year, so if family
homelessness is concentrated among jobless families, the EITC is perhaps less
likely to be effective at reducing homelessness.
Consistent with results from Shaefer etal. (2019), I find that greater accessi-
bility of cash assistance from TANF is associated with lower levels of family
homelessness. Specifically, the results suggest that increasing the accessibility of
TANF cash assistance from 1 percent of poor families (the rate in Wyoming) to
40 percent of poor families (the rate in Rhode Island) could contribute to a 0.9
percentage point (34 percent) decline in family homelessness. Such a change

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